Poetry Korner with Jennifer

Today we revive a dormant tradition here at I Blame the Patriarchy, the tradition of showcasing blamer poetry, which tradition is dormant only because nobody has put a pome in the comments in a while. This one is particularly fine. It’s a goddam sonnet.

Jennifer Weild
August 4, 2010 at 1:01 pm

Ask her nothing, dudely dudes, for she
before all else does thee in truth despise.
Do not protest thy honesty. Twisty
knows well the lies thy phallus signifies.

Aloft above her ranch the boiling hawks
the smallish, brownish birds and mice do hunt,
while Twisty Jill o’er interwebs doth stalk
the stupid man who dares her wield her gun.

Do not, dear dudes, assume sincerity
will shield thee from the spit of her contempt.
She can to thee attribute no real parity.
Your penis by itself leaves you exempt.

Tremble then, dear man, before you post,
or your head surrender to her cruelty’s boast.

Computer-generated list of quasi-related posts:

Poetry Korner If a blamer goes to the trouble of writing a blaming pome about a Dr...

Citizen Taqueau

What’s that I smell? Could it be REVOLUTION? Between my online rants in defense of Kelly and Antoine Dodson of Huntsville, Alabam., a healthy dose of tequila, and this gorgeous pome, I’m ready to march. Hey, isn’t there this abortion ban for women with life-threatening illnesses going on or something? What will it take to get us into the streets?

Ma'Whis'Ki

Believe me when I say I do not care–
I have a thyrsus for a heart, and ivy’d hair.
Suffering was my lot, but now no more;
I’ve wrecked the house and broken down the door!
I’ve trashed the closets, cut up all your clothes,
And smashed the china, raining fearsome blows
Against my servitude and pain, which now will die
As I chew on vengeful berries, mountain-high…
War of the sexes? Bring it! It’s my meat!
It will do me real good to hear you bleat
As I choke your spotted ego with bare hands
And skin it as my trophy! Your demands

For new, young things will sure their silence keep,
As I pull your heart out through your chest-wall
while you sleep.

procrastinatrix

I find it continually surprising that earnest dudes seek out this website, unable to learn from her multitude of posts (and commenting guidelines) about her lack of desire to teach earnest dudes a damn thing, or hear their opinions about a damn thing. Thus, Jill does not “stalk”, rather, the dudes “flock”.

This is in no way a commentary on the poem, which is far beyond anything my puny talent could create. Rock on!

Comrade Svilova

Magpie_Seven, great poetry writing and thanks for the reminder. As Humanbein was talking about lately, it’s the identification as “A Man” that usually spells trouble, not biology. Despite what Evo Pyschers would say.

wiggles

Veraswami – Amanda Marcotte at Pandagon writes up some good morning-after Mad Men analysis that has nothing to do with the clothes, except maybe a passing musing on why all the fuss about the clothes when so many interesting plot points and character developments are going on.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the show’s gotten more young women reading The Feminine Mystique either, since it’s frequently cited as an influence.

redpeachmoon

Dear Jill,
Your site has become my solace; the only place on the web where I feel comfortable and not pissed-off. The brilliant and hilarious writing help me make it through the day. I have new blaming sensors that constantly ring off, and way too many Nigels and wanna-be-overlords in my life. Yesterday my brother took me to a ‘sports bar’ for dinner where “The Miller Highlife Girls” were about to make an appearance and I knew I would have to flee. Luckily we left before their arrival. It’s lonely out here! Any advice for me? Or like we say in Ag.AA, ‘just keep coming’
Thanks for all you do. And fondest regards,
Jane

admirerofemily

Having read Ms Psmith’s recent close textual analysis of an Email Sent In By A Dude, whereby she pointed out a dude’s sense of dudely entitlement, I then went off to a conference where I was sat at a table with one dude and four women.

Said dude proceeded to avail our table with his manly wisdom. It was fascinating to watch, somewhat like an anthropologist. Finally I had to pounce and smack him down, thinking all the while of the blametariat cheering me on.

PandanCat

Next time some dyspeptic windbag begins whining to you about how shrill and mean you are, switch up your blaming and hit ’em with a pome! A well-aimed pome is at least as good as a pointy stick in deflating these kinds of sitatuions.

I was a Modern Languages major. (It’s like being an English major, but we do it backwards and in high heels.) I’m a long-time blamer; first-time poster too, hauled out of lurkitude by the temptation of writing a blaming poem for Aunt Twisty, whom I believe also to be a sometime Francophile.

Killerchick

I’m afraid ‘célibataire’ is indeed the best I can do in that langue barbare. I agree that it fails entirely to conjure the character of ‘spinster’, which is altogether a great word with its deceptively polite and cozy double susurration offset by the threatening plosive ‘p’.

There is a derogatory term too – ‘vieille fille’ – which in addition to offering a Gallic version of ‘old maid’ doesn’t escape the disturbingly misogynistic colloquial connotations of ‘une fille’ as a whore. A spinster is that member of the sex class reviled as too old to be fuckable for a few sous, let alone marriageable. It is certainly less prudey than ‘célibataire’, but also more blameworthy.

Tant(e) pis. Je blâme, il faut le dire, le patriarcat.

Hermionemone

Seriously? Célibataire is “spinster”? It sounds so prudey en français.

A spinster is a never-married woman of any age, ‘one who spins’, and theoretically a non-pejorative term. Were she to become an ‘old spinster’, the world harbors suspicions regarding why she is yet unmarried, with negative connotations, within the patriarchal worldview that women have positive value (if that) only when married, or marriageable.

Perhaps instead of spinning yarn for textile production, we might take the meaning of ‘spin’ in ‘spinster aunt’ to mean turning, rotating, revolving. Dare one say ‘twisting’? Dare one even say ‘revolution mongering’?

Spinster Aunt could be the oh-so-alliterative Tante Rotatante, Révolvante or perhaps Revoluciante, by the power of one’s poetic ‘double-oh’ license. Or would that be a ‘Humpty-Dumpty’ license (words mean exactly what one chooses them to mean)? But you’d need a different rhyme like brillante, piquante or édificante to go with it.

Killerchick

Hermionemone, I have taken a liberty or two with ‘blâmer’, which is infrequently used in the context, but I kept it for sound, so why not? I love the idea of a ‘Tante rotatante’ (not a member of the Rotary Club, it should be said). Though we are perhaps slipping from Symbolism into Surrealism with a ‘Tante révolvante’.

Drew

Magpie_seven, so happy to not be the first one to bring this up (the genital-based Transphobia in the original poem). Lurker Lyn and Comrade Svilova, thanks for echoing as well. But…no one else thought that was important enough to include in their comment?

Shinila

Je deteste guilt trippers aboard feminist sites. Mostly, cos there’s grounds to think them haters just trying to get past the moderating policy. They try to ‘out-feminist’ and put to shame other feminists.

Shinila

I think the people who guilt trip feminists find the thought of anyone actually defending women *so disgusting*, so they call out the myriad other ‘more important’ oppressions we should be spending energy on. To defend women is a waste of energy and a disgusting act of non-conformity.

As a black woman, I can honestly say I suffer more as a woman than a black person. Women are the most systematically oppressed people, historically, on this planet. Not black people, not disabled people, women are the scum of the Earth. So it chides when people bring up transphobia et al – as if women are actually discussing our problems. It happens so often in feminism, the seconding of women’s voices to other more important oppressions.

Women’s oppression is such a disgusting taboo – it feels like we have to bring up the oppression of rocks in place of it.

Drew

Noanodyne

It’s phobic when the Westboro Baptist freaks say “god hates fags.” It’s phobic when Martina Hingis declares her fear of being in the same dressing room with a lesbian tennis player. It’s phobic when conservative wingnuts claim that legalizing lesbian marriage will lead to marriage between people and animals.

It is not phobic to point out that transactivists use familiar derailing techniques to make any and all conversations about them, especially when they do so on a radical feminist blog and to a post that is as clear as it could possibly be in its intent.

The tactic that mp_seven and Drew have used is no different than any other “what about the men” tactic. And it’s also exactly like the many, many times Isabel came on here and tried desperately to turn any discussion of racism into a discussion of classism.

People with penises have caused the vast majority of misery for the people who don’t have them since time immemorial, all while assuring us that we just didn’t really understand, or it was just some men, or telling us we should really be talking about other things. Changing the conversation to be about your favorite people is just like a “not my Nigel” comment.

Radical feminists are not phobic for pointing out these derailing tactics. They are not phobic for explaining that there is more to being female in a patriarchal culture than someone born and raised male can understand simply because they believe they can. Radical feminists are not phobic for pointing out that one does not simply remove and discard their lifelong privilege, gender training, and attendant behavior like they would an article of clothing. And we are not phobic in pointing out that, even with a lot of work, many people with lifelong privilege (oh, I don’t know, like most white people), usually don’t believe they have it and continue acting like their behavior isn’t problematic.

And claiming someone is phobic, instead of considering their actual arguments, is also a derailing tactic. If you want to refute any of the arguments that radical feminists put forward with meaningful answers, then by all means do so. If you’re going to cower behind a shaming and silencing tactic like calling us phobic, you will be treated like the derailing troll you are.

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